100 years at the Grimm Farm — Joy in Minnesota

Wisconsin never misses a chance to remind us that they are a top-producing dairy state. (Got Cheese?) But not many people know that Wisconsin’s dairy domination is THANKS to Minnesota and our Alfalfa.

Not the kid from the kid from Little Rascals. The feed for livestock. For a while, as farmers spread across the midwest and sparsely populated the wide open prairies, dairy cows were allowed to range free on the land eating whatever forage they could find. When people started to get a little more crowded and didn’t appreciate cows munching on their lawns they were required to be fenced in and soon crops had to be grown to feed them. Alfalfa fit the bill since it is high in protein, grows quickly and cows love it.

But in the upper midwest, farmers faced “winter kill”. The grassy crop wouldn’t survive the cold winters and had to be replanted each year. That’s expensive and farmers couldn’t afford it.

Wendelin Grimm brought alfalfa seeds with him when he came to Minnesota from Germany in 1857. He carefully and painstakingly saved the seeds of the plants that survived the winter and replanted them on his farm in what is today Carver County. He repeated this process again and again over YEARS and eventually bred a variety of alfalfa that was “winter hardy” and would survive the bitter cold.

Neighbors took notice that his cows were fat and happy and he started selling them his seed. It was a nice little side hustle.

By the time Wendelin died in 1890, Carver County was on its way to becoming known as the “Golden Buckle of the Dairy Belt” - or at least that’s what Carver County was calling itself.

The University of Minnesota took notice around 1900 and professor Willet Hays took Grimm Alfalfa to Washington. The USDA (United States Department of Agriculture) recommended Grimm Alfalfa across the country and the successful crop was soon planted on over a million acres of land in Minnesota and another million acres in Wisconsin.

Over the next century, Grimm alfalfa became the source of all modern varieties of alfalfa grown on more than 34 million acres the United States and valued at $27 billion dollars.

In 1924, the Grimm Alfalfa Growers Association gathered at the Grimm farmstead to dedicate a plaque to the man whose seed saving skills created a booming industry.